Are We Loving Our Forests To Death?

When I was in forestry school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, we had a block of woods outside our forestry building called Thompson Woods.  It contained very large hardwood trees that were impressive to see.  That is the good news.  The bad news is the forest had been falling apart for years and was anything but healthy.  That was 37 years ago.  I would like to see what it looks like today.  Show me an overmature forest, and I will show you a forest in decline!

According to data from the U.S. Forest Service’s Resource Planning Act from 2022, we are now losing more timber to mortality than we are harvesting.  That tells this forester that we need to pay more attention to our forest to keep them healthy-and that includes timber harvest.  Trees have a limited lifespan and are always competing with other trees for sunlight, water and nutrients.  Each forest has a limit to the amount of timber volume it can grow and that is dependent on soil type, annual moisture, slope direction and tree type.  I often tell my clients, if a tree is not growing, it's dying- eventually only the strongest survive…until they die.

If I surveyed forest landowners, and asked them if they believe we are harvesting more timber than we are growing-I suspect they would think this is true.  With the exception of settlement times, we have historically harvested less volume than we are growing.  The 1990s saw the U.S.’s highest harvest rates.  At that time we were only removing 64% of annual growth.  Even if we stayed at that harvest rate, eventually our forests were going to mature and get us to the place we are at today. 

Unfortunately, it has gotten worse.  From 1996 (peak harvest year in the U.S.) through 2022, hardwood timber harvest has declined 29%.  That means today we are only removing 35% of annual growth.  We have more timber volume today than we have had over the past 70-125 years.   

THE STATE OF THE HARDWOOD MARKET

Truth be told, the hardwood industry has been in a decline for years, and this has accelerated since 2022.  Over 100 sawmills have closed in the last three years and some were very large operations.  The U.S. is also competing with other countries that have much lower labor rates.  China and Vietnam have been buying logs from the U.S. for years.  This has been a contentious issue in our industry.  If these countries pay more for logs than the mill can pay,  the mill will sell to them logs rather than saw the lumber.  That sounds like a good thing.  The mill sells the logs rather than saw them and that should trickle down to the landowner receiving more for their timber.  However, The mill could decide to close sawing operations and simply buy and ship logs to these countries. That has happened and some of our sawmill capacity has already moved overseas.   

I have visited with sawmill owners and listened firsthand to their challenges.  Labor shortages, shrinking profits, rising inflation, insurance costs, increasing regulation, and burnout. These owners are aging out with few family members willing to take over the operations.   

Consumer demand for our hardwoods has been falling due to cheaper options.  The hardwood flooring industry is a good example.  In 2012, luxury vinyl flooring only accounted for 3.7% of flooring. Today it represents 34% of flooring projects.  Furniture used to be manufactured here.  Now, most is made overseas with wood from other countries. Lastly, because of recycling of paper, we have reduced the need for trees in paper production.  

TIPPING POINT?

Are we at a tipping point in our forest?  Will we continue to harvest less volume in the years ahead?  Time will tell.  We need increased global economic activity and awareness for hardwood products.  This will keep existing hardwood manufacturers profitable and hopefully lead to new sawmills opening up in the future.

This quote from Dan Meyer, Editor for the Hardwood Review in the January 9, 2026 feature article sums up our situation.  

“Simply put, the long-term, environmentally driven shift away from wood products-exacerbated more recently by the price-driven market shift to imports and cheaper substitutes-is destroying the forests those consumers and policies sought to save.  This may be one of the most devastating lessons in unintended consequences of our lifetimes-of which the average consumer is unaware.  The only obvious solution would seem to be a shift in the American and global consumer ethos back to demanding products that actually benefit the forest.  Though we’ve been making those arguments for decades, perhaps the forest has reached a tipping point at which some will begin to hear”.  Let's hope so Dan! 

 Kraig Moore, Consultant Forester, ACF

March 11st, 2026